Nontraditional Thinking in the Central Office - school management by superintendents of non-education background

School Administrator, June, 2001 by Jay Mathews

Superintendents from business and the military apply a service mentality and results orientation

When Brian L. Benzel remembers his friend John Stanford, one of the earliest and most notable of America's new breed of nontraditional school superintendents, it is the spirit rather than the mechanics of Stanford's success that first comes to mind.

"John Stanford changed the public's perception of the Seattle school system," says Benzel, who was superintendent of a neighboring district when the former U.S. Army major general took charge in 1995. "He brought hope and energy to the system. His charismatic presence was demonstrated by a positive, 'can-do' attitude."

But that enthusiasm and energy, characteristic of the many new superintendents who have arrived from the fields of business, law and the military, focused on one thing--results. Stanford wanted a clear accounting of the district's financial health and the achievement of its students so that he knew exactly what needed to be done, just as he had had to do when he oversaw all transportation plans and programs for Operation Desert Storm.

Stanford set the tone by making students and parents and their complaints about bad service the first thing he talked about when he met reporters to discuss his new job. In Chicago and New York, San Diego and Oklahoma City, wherever a nontraditional superintendent has been hired by a school board eager for a change, the first administrative changes have almost always pushed school staff toward making more frequent and more accurate measurements of what is going on. The word "customers" was not so popular in schools before the nontraditional superintendents arrived, but many of them use it without embarrassment and their message is that the people being served must be satisfied.

Benzel, now the chief operating officer in the Seattle system, joined Stanford's management team when the former general was fighting a losing battle with the leukemia that would take his life in November 1998. He says Stanford "brought a rigorous focus on customer service. He created a unit in the district that still exists to coordinate and respond to the public: parents, citizens, businesses, etc.... He proclaimed early and often that the system would be student-focused and he rallied the public, educators, support staff and students to that cause."

Bottom-Line Focus

This is the direction most school districts are now going, some with more success than others. The focus on students and parents has been interpreted by some as administrators putting too much emphasis on standards and testing and too much pressure on students who may not be able to attain new levels of achievement required for promotion or graduation.

But there seems no sign that the movement is slackening. If anything, more districts are looking for their own self-confident new superintendent who might, like John Stanford, have wide experience in another profession and know new ways to make schools work.

"The new emphasis is on results," says Michael Usdan, president of the Washington-based Institute for Educational Leadership, who with Stanford University professor Larry Cuban is compiling a book on the rapid change in school district governance. "That means student achievement. That is what they were brought in to do."

The insistence on school achievement rather than administrative comfort goes back to an early nontraditional superintendent, Howard Fuller. He was the Milwaukee County health and human services director in 1991 when he switched jobs and became school superintendent.

"I eliminated the area superintendents and flattened out the bureaucracy, getting rid of a number of associate and assistant superintendents," he says. "My first budget contained no raises for anyone in the district. I did that to keep from cutting programs for kids" in the economic downturn of the early 1990s.

In each district with a new nontraditional superintendent, the approach has been slightly different, depending on customs, finances and personalities. In most cases, outsider methodology includes some of what Fuller and Stanford did, getting more money to where it would do the most good.

Arriving in Seattle in 1995 after four years as manager of Fulton County, Ga., Stanford worked with Joseph Olchefske, then his chief financial officer and now his successor as superintendent, on a weighted student funding process. Parents and students were given a chance to choose the school they wanted. When they moved, the money to meet their educational needs went with them. The formula approved by the Seattle school board in December 1996 allotted more money for students who had extra disadvantages, like poor English or low-income parents.

With help from Roger Erskine of the Seattle Education Association, the teachers' bargaining unit, Stanford changed the philosophy of the teacher contract. "Teacher seniority was eliminated as the basis for school selection and replaced with a process that allowed schools, with teachers as their leadership team, to select the staff at their school that would best meet the academic achievement plan the school developed to implement their program," Benzel says.